


You Know

by ReminiscentLullaby



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Akuma Attack, F/M, Falling In Love, Love Confessions, Post-Episode: s03 Miracle Queen (The Battle of the Miraculous Part 2), Protective Gabriel, Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-24
Updated: 2020-01-24
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:41:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22388872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ReminiscentLullaby/pseuds/ReminiscentLullaby
Summary: Gabriel has the opportunity to create the fearsome akuma that had once slipped out of his grasp - Verity Queen, a steadfast truth-seeker.However, getting caught with his assistant in the crossfires of a super villain whose power is to reveal your deepest, darkest secret is a turn of events he hadn't prepared for.
Relationships: Gabriel Agreste | Papillon | Hawk Moth/Nathalie Sancoeur
Comments: 15
Kudos: 177
Collections: GabeNath Book Club and Art Club Server





	You Know

**Author's Note:**

> Miraculously, my motivation has returned and I have written something new! Don’t know if I’ll be able to keep this up but here’s hoping! 
> 
> I hope you enjoy. Remember to leave a comment, friends :)

Verity Queen.

A number of months ago, Hawkmoth had let the akuma slip out of his grasp, a turn of events he had never found himself regretting. It was a small, really quite meaningless sacrifice, particularly in the moment. He felt a falter in the confidence of the woman behind him, and a moment later, listened to the sound of the choked coughing she immediately tried to muffle, but it was too late. Any attempt she could have made to avoid distracting him was thwarted before she could even raise her fist to her lips.

Only seconds passed, he remembered, between her first stifled cough and the placement of his hand on her waist as he fumbled to hold her comfortably. And in that time, Scarlet Moth had melted off his body to reveal and equally desperate Gabriel, Catalyst dissolved into Nathalie, crumpled in his clumsy grasp, and the beginnings of the fearsome Verity Queen, along with her menacing ally Princess Justice, fell through the cracks. The plan split apart and burst. As Gabriel lifted Nathalie into his embrace to carry her out of the lair, there was nothing left of it.

Maybe it had crossed his mind a couple times since that day – a day marked in his memories, not by resounding failure but the weight of his fiery, reluctantly tortured assistant in his arms – that their poor luck was a bit of a shame. Of course, he’d had other things to worry about. The loss was hardly worth the fuss as long as Nathalie’s hand was clasped beneath his, as long as she was looking at him with promise and relinquishment to his earnest plea for her to want her safety as much as he did. He kicked himself not because he’d freed those akumas before they’d had the chance, but because he’d later denied Nathalie that safety just as she was beginning to favor it.

Verity Queen and Princess Justice could have been the ones, and he failed them, he might have realized. But bursting forth, obliterating the thought as quickly as it would occur to him, came the far more agonizing remorse of failing Nathalie. And Gabriel had to scold himself in solitude, because Nathalie, stubborn and reckless as she was, would never admit to the ways he had wronged her. Sometimes she thought she kept quiet for his own good, knowing that he could never crawl out of a hole she helped him dig.

She’d tried to redirect his remorse. While he mourned over her days of weakness, she would solemnly glance toward the window and lament the pair of akumas whose glory had never materialized. Her efforts were fruitless. All she had to do was glance from the window to his busy countenance, see the work of memory in his steel-blue eyes and how it found a subject, not in empty space, but in the color of her cheeks. And she would look away again, knowing they were too pale, trying to hide it, but he’d seen. 

He almost didn’t realize his good fortune when his miraculous alerted him of one of these former target’s resurfacing emotions. Situations like this were rare. Gabriel hadn’t even considered the possibility of this opportunity arising once again. But there he was, a hand hovering motionless in the air, his head turned just slightly as pulses of intense emotion reverberated through his chest like a foreign heartbeat. He wondered if the familiarity had merely been a fluke.

No, indeed it was Verity Queen, or at least the woman who would become that lost akuma, and perhaps she would have a chance of occupying her own memory, rather than be doomed to share space with the horror of watching Nathalie’s legs buckle, Mayura be tossed off the Arc de Triomphe by a hero who didn’t know she wouldn’t be able to break her own fall. Gabriel smiled, drinking in the anger, the frustration, the confusion of the victim, and across the room, Nathalie had recognized the look of hunger on his face.

She rose from her desk chair, not waiting to be beckoned as Gabriel turned to the portrait and positioned his fingers over the disguised buttons. “I thought I’d felt something too, sir,” she said, and added, “Something familiar.”

“Verity Queen.”

“Miss Dupain-Cheng’s mother.”

“And to our advantage, just as desperate for the truth as she was the last time she was in our grasp.”

Nathalie positioned directly behind him. Gabriel plugged his fingers into the portrait, and they began their descent.

As they entered darkness, Gabriel asked her, “Do you think there’s potential for a sentimonster?”

“Certainly. If you’re thinking what I’m thinking about Verity Queen’s powers.”

“They’ll have to be adjusted slightly to the circumstances. Her motivation is no longer justice, but resentment. She wishes she was trusted with the truth.”

“Poor thing,” Nathalie murmured, and he felt her raise an arm, presumably to her chest where her miraculous was pinned. “You understand where she’s coming from, don’t you?”

“I think I understand particularly well.”

As they landed in the lair, Nooroo and Duusu, like two streaks of light, flew out into the open and peered at their holders expectantly. Nooroo exuded his usual discomfort, but Duusu seemed unusually perturbed, judging by the nervous fluttering of her tail feathers and the grimace on her face.

“What’s the matter, Duusu?”

“Verity Queen?” chirped the peacock kwami, her magenta eyes wide and brimming with anxious tears. “I remember Verity Queen! – well only kinda. She never really existed.”

“Duusu –“

“But I do remember what happened to Miss Nathalie the last time you tried to akumatize her!” Fretting noisily, Duusu drifted in dizzying circles around both of their heads. “You’re not going to try and become Scarlet Moth again, are you?”

“No,” Nathalie replied, holding out her hand so the kwami would slow down and come to a rest. “There’s no need for that today. And Duusu, you have no reason to worry about me. The miraculous is fixed now.”

“I know it is, but –“

“It’s fixed,” Nathalie exclaimed, and the kwami gave her a startled, confused look. “We have work to do. Duusu, spread my feathers!”

“Nooroo, dark wings rise!”

Hawkmoth and Mayura locked eyes as slow, eager smiles spread across their faces. He couldn’t help but admire the vitality in her gaze; paired with color and darkness, he was certain he’d never seen a look quite like hers. Even when she was sick, during those vexing several months, where her body faltered, her eyes did not. They teemed with life enough to compensate for the weakness dragging her down in a fight, the pain she tried to hide while sitting behind her computer screen.

The crackling of magic in his fist filled the lair before a black butterfly cut a jagged line between them and the window, bright with the light of a crisp blue afternoon. Mayura waited beside him with her fan gently waving back and forth in front of her lips. He could see her thinking, lively eyes going sharp as she stared after the akuma long after it had disappeared into the city.

“What are you planning?” asked Hawkmoth, voice low. The added height provided by the transformation allowed him to gaze steeply into her face.

“Speak with the akuma first,” she answered. A hand reached to brush at the delicate piece of indigo hair framing her face. “Then, I’ll tell you.”

The target was found a few minutes later, and as Hawkmoth sensed his consciousness crashing through the mind of his victim, a glowing purple visor appeared before him, framing his eyes. Mayura grinned. “Verity Queen,” he addressed, and a recognition flared briefly from the akuma to him, “I’m thrilled we have the opportunity to meet again. You seek the truth even when trusted loved ones continue to deny you their secrets. I’m giving you the power to force it out of them. Anyone who refuses you now will find they have no choice but to bow to the queen of truth!”

He paused, and the akuma seemed pleased with the offering.

“All I ask for in exchange are Ladybug and Chat Noir’s miraculous. Do we have a deal, Verity Queen?”

Assent. “Yes, Hawkmoth. My daughter will wish she had trusted me sooner.”

“Excellent.”

As the transformation washed over his victim, Hawkmoth turned to face his partner who watched him expectantly. Mayura said, “Hawkmoth. Let me head out into the fray.”

Immediately, uncertainty gripped him, and the fist around his cane tightened in unison. The sharp angle of his line of sight steadied as he took just a step away from her, as if to get a fuller look. He knew she didn’t like his expression by the shifting of her brow muscles and lowering of her fan.

“Hawkmoth –“

“Mayura, I’m not sure.”

“An akuma like this one presents incredible opportunity for sentimonsters. Imagine how many people will be devastated to have revealed their deepest truth.”

“You can create sentimonsters from _here_ , just as you have been doing. Why would you need to be anywhere else?”

“The more individual forces confronting the heroes, the better, don’t you agree?” she challenged, and Hawkmoth, again, was captivated by the fire blazing in her eyes, so intense and bold that it nearly appeared red. Red, like the streak of her civilian hair; red, like the blood from between her lips on those last dreadful days before she started to get better. “I want to do everything we possibly can to ensure victory. With an akuma like this, why take chances? Why not push it as far as it can go?”

“I don’t like the way you make that sound.”

“It isn’t as bad as I express it,” she murmured, her voice level, calming, perhaps it was even sweet, a startling yet pleasurable contrast to the heat in her face. “Hawkmoth, you know I am okay. I’ve only gotten stronger.”

Indeed, it had been months since the peacock miraculous was fixed, and only a little less since Nathalie’s condition had begun to improve. She had only asked one other time since then to confront the heroes herself, and when Hawkmoth had sensibly denied her, she’d chosen not to argue. He wondered if her defiance indicated that she was more confident now than she was then, but there were plenty of past instances where she had endangered herself despite her unstable health. 

“Hawkmoth, look at me,” whispered Mayura, and his gaze, which had drifted inward, refocused on her reassuring visage. “I want to do this. Please, don’t worry.”

He remembered the exchange that had occurred just a few minutes ago, when Duusu, fretful as ever, had worryingly warbled out her own concerns. With a flush of embarrassment, he realized he might be sounding awfully similar to the overemotional little creature. He sighed, shook his head, shook out the fear. Mayura was more than capable of anything she set her mind to. That, he was convinced of. At last, he said, “Well, then. Go.”

She smiled. “I will be speaking with you frequently,” she promised, waving her fan at him as she went. “An akuma, her slaves, a sentimonster, _and_ me? Ladybug and Chat Noir will have a lot to fight off today.”

Mayura paused as he turned his body towards her. Hawkmoth merely tilted his head forward and whispered in a low, gentle voice, “Be careful.”

She blinked, then looked away, fan folded and gripped tightly in both hands. “I will.”

She went quickly, like a bird diving out of the sky.

* * *

Verity Queen proved just as formidable as Hawkmoth had long hoped. She began her reign in pursuit of her daughter, Marinette Dupain-Cheng, who, Gabriel supposed by what the emotions had told him, was fervently trying to keep something hidden from her parents. Behind the wicked gaze of this menacing akuma was merely a mother feeling hurt, who had always believed she had had a close enough relationship to her child to be told any imposing secret. Had Gabriel any less sense, he might have sympathized with the woman, yet here he stood, hidden away in a dark room unknown to his son, who the last time he had been checked on, was seated at his grand piano, his fingers creating music while Hawkmoth’s created akumas. He didn’t know with any conviction if Adrien trusted him. If he were to find out he didn’t, he’d know well enough to stifle the anger, or the hurt, or whatever would come of such a revelation.

Marinette seemed nowhere to be found. In her attempt to locate her daughter, Verity Queen had managed to cause plenty of damage anyway. Perhaps, it was the city’s diminishing fear of Hawkmoth’s attacks that made them resistant to the demands of the akuma, or they had deeper, darker secrets than Hawkmoth would have expected of most of them, but Verity Queen had taken slave nearly every civilian she came across as consequence for their silence. It was to their advantage anyway. Ladybug and Chat Noir became alerted of the commotion quickly, and the battle had begun.

“If you strike them, Verity Queen, you can force them to reveal their identities,” Hawkmoth growled, watching the fight through her eyes, “And if they refuse, they are under your control. Their miraculous will be vulnerable to take.”

Verity Queen said, “And then, I can conquer the city without opposition. I will find my daughter soon enough. Marinette can’t hide forever!”

Hawkmoth disconnected to raise the top of his cane to his mouth. “Mayura,” he called.

She responded right away. “Hawkmoth.”

“What’s happening? Have you found a target for your amok?”

“Unfortunately, the enslaved civilians go blank once they fall under Verity Queen’s control. None of them will do. I’ll have to wait until someone reveals are particularly upsetting secret. It can’t be long now.”

He heard something on the other end and couldn’t determine at first if it was a cough her boot scraping against a rough surface. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. Why?”

He frowned. “Never mind.”

Mayura was silent for a few moments, and then she announced, “Verity Queen has a pretty large mob now. I wouldn’t be surprised if people started revealing their secrets to avoid putting more of a burden on their heroes.”

“Have they advised them of anything?”

“I don’t know if they would tell the people they are defending to announce such personal information.” Mayura paused again. “Normally I wouldn’t say this, but I feel a little guilty for putting them in this position. We could be ruining lives.”

It struck Hawkmoth as true, but he shook his head and replied, “It’s not like Verity Queen is broadcasting their secrets to the whole city.”

“No, but she tends to capture people in pairs or small groups. These secrets are likely to be affecting others in the circle.”

“Mayura,” he said suddenly.

“What?”

“Please, don’t get captured.”

She clicked her tongue. “She has no reason to turn against me.”

“I know,” murmured Hawkmoth. He could hear the wind through her phone, the clatter of her heels. “What’s going on?”

“The fight’s moving around quite a bit. Ladybug and Chat Noir are trying to avoid being pinned down by the mob.” A moment passed of relative quiet before Hawkmoth heard her grunt, like she had just landed after jumping from a significant height. “I’m trying to keep up. Once I make my sentimonster, I can –“ Her voice broke off into several harsh, dry coughs, but before Hawkmoth could interrupt, she continued, “ – I can jump into the fight when they seem vulnerable.”

“Mayura, are you okay?”

Another series of coughs answered him. Hawkmoth went cold from his scalp to the base of his spine.

“Mayura!”

“I’m fine, Hawkmoth!” she rasped. In the wordlessness that followed, he could still hear her footsteps. “Don’t worry. I’ll spare my energy for the right moment.”

“You said you were okay.”

“I _am_ okay.” 

He opened his mouth to retort when Verity Queen’s mind collided with his. “Chat Noir has activated his cataclysm,” she announced, and Hawkmoth could see through her gaze that the hero’s right hand bubbled with the destructive power. Shaken, he hesitated to respond. His cane was still close to his mouth. He could hear Mayura’s footsteps, and perhaps it was only his imagination, but he wondered if they were slowing down.

Verity Queen prompted him again, and he stammered, “Once – once he uses his power, don’t let him escape to re-power his miraculous. You have an army now, Verity Queen!” he snapped, “Use it!”

He should have chosen to watch, pay mind to the cat’s next move now that he had such little time to make it, but he broke away from Verity Queen abruptly. He realized his heart was racing, and he called Mayura’s name into the phone.

“Hawkmoth…”

“What’s wrong?” he demanded. She sounded tired.

“Nothing, I –“ Hawkmoth flinched as something rattled on her end, the sound of the fan being dropped, spiraling across the ground. Her voice registered distantly, “I’m fine.”

He didn’t wait. He was already leaving. As daylight softened, the air became brisker, breeze coolly breathing through the thin material forming his mask. He noticed the streets were empty and awfully silent. “Where are you?” he whispered.

Hawkmoth held his breath through the silence. And then her words came, weak and resigned. “By Françoise Dupont. Not far. There’s nobody around.”

The shame in her voice was so terribly unlike her. As Hawkmoth started making his way discreetly towards the school, he encouraged her, “Mayura, please, keep talking to me. So I know you’re conscious.”

“Oh – don’t say something like that.”

“You’re collapsed aren’t you? I heard it happen.”

“Gabriel –“ She corrected herself. “Hawkmoth, please, I don’t –“ There was the scrape of the fan across the ground, and then she continued, sounding much closer to the phone. “I don’t want this to be a matter of too much concern.”

He dropped from the rooftop of the Dupain-Cheng patisserie into the nearby intersection and froze when he saw a lone man further down the road. It took a moment for him to realize that it was just one of Verity Queen’s victims that had been left behind. He kept moving. “ _Too_ much concern?”

“The miraculous is fixed. This is just…bad luck.” She coughed. “We knew it was going to take time for me to recover fully.”

“I would rather not have let you go out until then.”

“Well, even with hundreds of mindless slaves at her command, Verity Queen is no closer to defeating Ladybug and Chat Noir than most akumas. Her power may be useful, but she was going to need my help. She _still_ needs my help.”

“Help you could have given from the lair, where I could have been to – to catch you.”

He heard her grunting with effort, the thud of feet beating heavily against the ground.

“Don’t move. Just stay there. I’ve almost reached you.”

While Hawkmoth drifted around Françoise Dupont in search of his fallen partner, memories crashed through his head like turbulent ocean waves, reviving the images of Nathalie lying limp on the floor of the lair, the ones that used to follow every thought of Verity Queen and the grand plan that had slipped through his fingers. She had been so sick, then, and should would plummet even further thanks to his foolishness to let her. But things were meant to be looking up now. This wasn’t nearly the first time she had collapsed since the miraculous was fixed, but he’d hoped, he’d prayed that her last had already come to pass. She had been confident that it had. What went wrong? _What went wrong?_

Was it really bad luck? he wanted to ask. Was this really so out of the blue? It had been months now, yes, but it had also taken months for her to fall so far. Perhaps it would take even longer for her to crawl back up this jagged cliffside – it wasn’t like they had anything else but time and patience and hope to help her. And Nathalie was one to keep her suffering to herself – that he had learned quickly and painfully, and it had kept him up through multiple difficult nights. She was better. He _knew_ she was better. She couldn’t fool him well enough to fake that, but now he had to question, how much better?

Hawkmoth spotted her behind the building, back pressed up against the wall, hands clutching the fan close to her chest. As he got closer, he noticed she was shaking. She looked afraid, embarrassed. She refused to meet his gaze as he landed beside her.

“Mayura…”

“I could have waited this out. Now we’re both in the open,” she told him hoarsely.

“It’s better than leaving you defenseless.” Hawkmoth kneeled beside her. “I’ll get you back to the house, and then you can rest.”

“No, I still want to help.”

“Look at yourself, dear, you’re unwell.”

“I’m –“ She started coughing, and the arms he had begun to wrap around her fell away as she curled her upper body over her knees. Hawkmoth looked over his shoulder, checking for any onlookers, before he rested a hand between her shoulder blades. She coughed roughly, uninterrupted for nearly twenty seconds, when she choked out, “This isn’t as bad as it used to be.”

“I’d like to believe you,” he murmured, “but this isn’t what a fixed miraculous should look like.”

“It’s fixed!” she snapped, breathing heavily. “You fixed it!”

“I didn’t fix you,” said Hawkmoth. Mayura’s eyes flicked up to him, dark and burning as they ever were, but they burned with something other than vigor now. Flames of grievance glowed in her gaze, distorted by the tears that had gathered there while she had been doubled over. Hawkmoth felt a pang in his heart. “I wish I did. I wish I could. The best I can do is make sure you rest.”

Her mouth fell open to argue, then clamped shut to suddenly form a twisted grimace. Her fan dropped into her lap, hands flying up to clutch her head. “Oh,” she exclaimed.

Hawkmoth drew her into his arms, but she writhed in response, making it difficult to lift her.

“I don’t…” she gasped. “I don’t think I can –“

Before she had finished speaking, her transformation dropped, and Hawkmoth was trying hold Nathalie steady in his arms. She coughed into her fists, trembling as she paused to catch her breath.

“Nathalie!” Hawkmoth said.

Duusu flitted around them, trilling indistinctly but for the occasional exclamation of “Miss Nathalie!”

“I…I couldn’t hold it. I’m sorry, I don’t know what happened,” muttered Nathalie, letting her head fall against Hawkmoth’s chest.

“Miss Nathalie!” Duusu shouted again. “Oh, I told you! I told you, you shouldn’t have transformed today!”

Hawkmoth’s arms tightened around Nathalie’s body. He looked up at Duusu and forced the kwami to become still just by the intensity of his gaze. “What?” he growled. “You told her what?”

“Duusu,” Nathalie mumbled in warning.

But her kwami was compelled to answer. “She woke up this morning feeling sick again! She still gets sick a couple times a week. She doesn’t tell you.”

“Duusu…”

“Of course, she used to get sick _every_ morning,” added the kwami, “So, she’s much better now. Right, Miss Nathalie? You _are_ much better.”

Her holder glared.

“What matters is now,” Hawkmoth replied. He scanned the area around them. It was thankfully still empty, but he could hear shouts in the distance, and he could feel that Verity Queen wasn’t too far from them. Wherever she was, the heroes were certain to be as well. He glanced back down at Nathalie in his arms, and at the space where her head leaned against him, inches from his miraculous. “I can’t take you back like this.”

“What?”

“If anyone sees you with me, they’ll become suspicious,” he said. “More likely, they’ll suppose immediately that you’re Mayura. I need to detransform too.”

“What? No, that’s foolish. You can’t carry me that whole way without your transformation,” she murmured. “I’ll just become Mayura again. Duusu, spread my –“

“Absolutely not,” he cut in. “Nathalie, you’re too sick to be transformed.”

“Then leave me here until I can walk on my own.”

“What makes you think I would even consider that?” he asked. Before she could reply, he muttered, “Dark wings fall.”

Nooroo appeared beside Duusu, solemn and silent as ever. Meanwhile, Gabriel could at once feel the difference in his strength. Nathalie had been feather-light in Hawkmoth’s hold, but now that it was Gabriel with his arms around her, he became doubtful that he’d be able to carry her the entire way.

He didn’t say this though. Without another word, he started off.

“Maybe we should just wait here,” Nathalie was saying.

“I don’t want to stay out and about while Verity Queen and her slaves are loose,” said Gabriel. The kwamis trailed behind them, Duusu’s mutters a constant rattle in his ear. “The sooner we get back, the better. You can rest somewhere properly, and I can get back to dealing with her. I don’t want an akuma like that out of my control for longer than necessary.”

Nathalie’s eyes were wide as she stared up into his face. Her irises, like translucent blue disks, caught the sharply angled sunlight, distributing gold through their pools of color. Had her face not been so pale, the shadows not so pronounced, her body not so limp in his arms, Gabriel might have taken notice – because he hadn’t noticed. He couldn’t notice at a time like this. Then, she closed her eyes and whispered, “I’m sorry.”

He stalled at the edge of the street to ensure there was no one to be seen, and then continued. “Don’t be sorry, Nathalie.”

“This was not a good day to distract you from your goal.”

“I’m not distracted,” he said forcefully. “You’re not a distraction.”

Gabriel’s pace was slowing. He adjusted Nathalie in his arms as he reached the other side of the street. There were still a couple blocks to go.

She said, “Then I’m sorry for setting you back.”

“You’re not a setback either,” he asserted. She chewed on the inside of her cheek. He could feel her wringing her hands where they sat clasped around his neck. “If there is something you think you should apologize for,” Gabriel said quietly, careful that his voice was gentle; perhaps, it was even desperate, “then I think it should be for telling me you felt strong enough to fight when you didn’t.”

Nathalie said nothing.

“Why did you lie?”

Nathalie stiffened, not out of pain or because the question has struck her, but because her eyes had locked on something ahead of them. Gabriel followed her gaze and came to such a sudden halt that kwamis behind him both knocked into his back.

“Master…” whispered Nooroo.

Gabriel stared. A massive crowd of civilians was inching its way towards them. Squinting, he could see that their eyes appeared flat and gold, like their sockets had been filled with metal. Their mouths were covered by deep red cloths, for they were the ones who refused to reveal their secrets, and if they could not speak the truth, then they would not speak at all. They seemed to spot Gabriel and Nathalie all at once, for their footsteps quickened. They roared against the asphalt.

“Oh no…”

“Put me down,” Nathalie hissed. “Put me down, I can run.”

“Master!” Nooroo exclaimed, diving into his jacket, followed quickly by a chattering Duusu. Gabriel turned around to find a similarly sized mob behind them, also making their way.

Reluctantly, Gabriel listened, setting Nathalie on the ground, but as soon as she had put her weight down, she clung to him again.

“Nathalie!”

“I’m fine, just give me a minute.”

“We don’t have a minute.” His head swept from side to side, assessing both crowds. They were closing in, but there was no sign of the heroes, or Verity Queen. He squeezed Nathalie’s hand. “Can you actually walk?”

She watched her feet as she took a step back, and then another. “Yes,” she breathed.

Still holding her hand, Gabriel led her towards an alleyway. The mobs were gaining quickly, and Gabriel tried to move faster, but Nathalie stumbled behind him. She kept going, but when Gabriel glanced over his shoulder, he saw her expression contorted with agony, teeth gritted, eyes squinted into thin slits, brows that twitched.

“Nathalie –“

“Keep going,” she groaned.

Just as the crowds were closing in, Gabriel and Nathalie slipped into the alleyway. She gasped, reaching for her miraculous. “Gabriel, we should transform.”

“They’re still on our tail.”

“They won’t remember it!”

She was right, but the pained look on her face was enough to give him pause. The mob was flooding into the alleyway behind them. The closest of the group had their arms out-stretched, fists clenching and unclenching. They staggered over each other, some hitting the ground, only to rise again undaunted.

“No…”

“Gabriel –“

There had been light shining through the gap between the two buildings flanking them, but all at once, gold turned to shadow. A pair of feet slammed into the ground just meters ahead of Gabriel and Nathalie, and instinctively, Gabriel pulled her into his arms. She buckled at the sudden movement and dropped onto her knees. He went down with her, drawing her close to his chest as he looked up at their new obstacle.

Verity Queen glared at them, her eyes blank and gold like those of her followers, but still seeing. Red lips twisted into a smile. As she took a few wide steps closer to them, the ruby-colored silk robes she wore flapped elegantly in an unfelt wind. She was a rather short woman, but she exuded grace and power that made her appear mighty as a goddess.

Gabriel gasped as several hands fastened over his shoulders and arms. He resisted their attempts to pull him away from Nathalie, tightening his embrace, curling his body over hers protectively. Verity Queen’s followers stumbled past and closed a circle around the three distinctive figures in the alley.

Just audible enough for Gabriel to make it out, Nathalie whispered, “You should have left me.” He only held her tighter. 

Verity Queen held out a glittering golden scepter, not unlike the one that Style Queen had carried, and aimed it at Gabriel and Nathalie. “Not many akumas have had the opportunity to face you, Mr. Agreste,” she growled. “This was an unlucky day to find yourself outside that mansion you hole yourself up in. You know, my daughter used to be a big fan of your work. Unfortunately, I’m having trouble finding her. But even if I have to bring this entire city under my command, I _will_ make her tell me the truth.”

Nathalie, already without color in her face, seemed to go even paler as it dawned at her what was about to happen. She looked fearfully between Gabriel and Verity Queen.

"And I will make you as well,” finished the akuma.

“Gabriel…”

“I want to know your secrets,” Verity Queen hissed, the end of her scepter lurching back and forth between the two of them. It pulsed with a threatening blood-red light. “I will _know_ if you lie.”

Gabriel’s mind raced. He wondered if Verity Queen would let them go if she knew the two she had cornered were the ones who given her this power. At first, he thought, of course. They had made a deal after all; they were a team. But a darker part of his mind spoke his worst fear, that now that she had opportunity to overcome the one who had created her, she would not have to trouble herself with fulfilling their agreement. Hawkmoth, despite all the promises he’d made to his akumas, had never the chance to break them, to remove his victims’ powers as soon as they had satisfied their use.

And even if she did choose to let them go in exchange for their honestly, now loomed the danger of the truth making it to the ears of Ladybug and Chat Noir.

Trying to avoid betraying his fear, Gabriel asked, levelly, “Where are the heroes?”

Verity Queen smiled, tilting her head. “Unable to help you now. They’re a bit caught up.” She gestured to her ring of followers. “Do you think this is everyone I’ve managed to conquer today? Now, quit stalling.” Another powerful stride closer, and the glowing scepter hovered a couple inches from Gabriel’s chin. Those gold eyes narrowed. It was impossible to tell exactly where they were looking, but nearly undetectable movements told Gabriel she wasn’t staring exclusively at him. “The two of you,” she breathed with amazement, “are hiding a lot. So many secrets, destructive secrets. Secrets shared between the both of you…” She leaned down to gaze directly into Gabriel’s scowling face. A delicate ivory hand brushed against his cheek, and then against Nathalie’s forehead, flicking at the piece of hair stuck by sweat between her eyebrows. “Though, I’m not very interested in the things you both already know.”

Both Gabriel and Nathalie tried to mask their relief, but he could feel her relaxing. Her cool blue eyes continued to pierce into Verity Queen’s uncanny face – she looked a bit like a moving statue.

Gabriel murmured, calmly, “Then what do you want to know?”

“Your deepest secrets,” she replied. “The things you have told nobody else, that you keep hidden even from those you most trust. And I think…” Her eyes drifted shut, and the light at the end of her scepter blinked even brighter, washing both their faces in a violent red glow. “I think what you keep the most hidden is the way that you feel about each other.”

Gabriel, at first, was confused. He didn’t see how Nathalie couldn’t already know exactly how he felt. How could his opinion of her be deeper and darker than the identity of Hawkmoth? He glared at Verity Queen wordlessly for several moments, dumbfounded and unamused and waiting for her to realize she was wrong.

But Verity Queen’s face remained unchanged, save for her unnerving eyes snapping open once again

Gabriel noticed a moment later that Nathalie was shaking. He broke his akuma’s challenging stare to glance down. Nathalie’s expression was white with alarm, her blue eyes void of heat, brisk and watery and gazing into nothing. Her breathing quickened. Gabriel released some of the strength in his hold. “Nathalie,” he murmured. 

“So, I seem to have hit a sensitive spot,” Verity Queen observed. She thrusted her scepter between their faces, causing both to wince. “Reveal the truth or be punished for your silence.”

“Nathalie, look at me,” he said, and her eyes flashed briefly into his own, but she clearly found it too unbearable to look very long, because she turned her head away.

Gabriel could feel it in his miraculous. She was panicking, but she was also fighting with herself, trying desperately to quell the billows of emotion he sensed rushing through her. With every wave of fear came a stone that tried to cut it down, but that which was grounded could only do so much to suppress the fluid, torrential movement of her emotion.

“I don’t have all day,” snarled Verity Queen. “Speak, or never speak again!”

She was trying to control herself. She was trying to arrest the part of her that scrambled to hold on to what she so feared letting go. This secret, this secret Gabriel didn’t even know she had. His heart thundered in his chest. The hands on his arms wrenched deeper into his skin till it burned. The scepter blazed brighter.

“Three…” threatened Verity Queen, “two…one –“

“Nathalie,” Gabriel said. He lifted a hand to her face, a move which seemed to momentarily draw her out of her panic. “Do you want to know how I really feel about you?”

Too stunned to answer, Nathalie merely stared at him.

He heaved a deep sigh, glancing sideways at Verity Queen, who listened, and then, mustering up whatever optimism he could manage, he smiled at Nathalie. “I think you’re incredible,” he told her, and certainly, it was the truth. So was every word that followed. “I think you’re brilliant, one of the sharpest, boldest, bravest people I’ve ever met. You already know how much I appreciate everything you do for me as my assistant, but you do so much more for me as a friend, as a partner. Some days, I can’t even believe how lucky I am. To have you at my side is more than I can possibly deserve.”

He was going to stop there, he was going to hope that it was enough, but the words came spilling out of him. Nathalie watched him all the while with an utterly dumbstruck expression.

“I don’t know why you feel like you have to lie to me, because you are so, _so_ strong. No matter what happens, no matter if you fall, or you stumble, or you choose to give yourself a break for once,” he said, and he took a breath, noticing how deep and how fast his heart was beating, like it was trying to leap through his chest, “you will always be strong. I am amazed by you, Nathalie. I can’t say it enough. You _amaze_ me. And the only thing I can ask of you is that take care of yourself, because I don’t know what I would do without you, and if you tell me you’re okay when you’re not because you for some reason don’t believe that I care enough about you to understand, then I promise, Nathalie, I promise I’ll make you believe. Any way that I can. I just need you to know it.”

Her lips formed the shape of his name, but there was no voice to accompany her breath.

“You’re resilient,” he went on, “and faithful and selfless and if it weren’t for you, I’d have lost everything by now. I used to think it was a miracle, but it’s been you all along.” His thumb softly caressed her cheekbone, and her hand reached up to take his wrist. “My dear, it’s been you.”

As he finished, breathless, it felt like something had just crashed through his head. He thought he’d said everything, but there were still words remaining there in his mind, demanding to be spoken, loud and turbulent and hot. Had his head erupted into flames? Could she tell by the way they flurried in the gaze he couldn’t bear to tear away from her? He was certain of one thing, that the look in his eyes now resembled that dazzling blaze she so often took on, that resolve, that boldness, that promise…

That love.

Dear Lord, he realized, that’s love.

Verity Queen hadn’t moved during his confession. She remained posed with the scepter positioned between them, her gilded eyes narrowed, and scarlet lips twisted into a grin. She waited, sensing that after all he had already said, he wasn’t finished. There were three words left. Three words of truth, the only words he had needed to say since she’d first dropped out of the sky to subjugate them.

A wrench of anguish tore through his chest. He didn’t have a choice. Either he told her, or it was over for the both of them. Yet, he couldn’t help but find it cruelly ironic, how the product of his devotion to his long-awaiting wife now forced his lips to admit his love for the woman trying help him get her back.

He felt insufferably guilty.

Nathalie could see it, and at last, her astonishment was giving way to a myriad emotions his miraculous could barely distinguish all at once, but most prominently in the gentle curve of her brow and wet glint of her azure stare arose a temperate sadness, as if to whisper under one’s breath, “ _I know_.”

Gabriel’s hand fell from her face. “Nathalie, I…”

And then, before he could wait longer enough to blame his cowardice for his silence, a spotted yo-yo dropped from the sky and wrapped around Verity Queen’s scepter, yanking it from between the faces of the two at its menacing end. Verity Queen shouted and refused to let the wand out of her grasp, but now that she was distracted, Gabriel and Nathalie scrambled to their feet, trying desperately to pry the hands of her follower’s off their bodies.

Chat Noir landed near them. “Duck!” he yelled, before swinging his elongated baton around the ring of enslaved civilians, knocking the lot of them onto the ground. Ladybug dove from the rooftop and struggled with Verity Queen over the scepter, the akumatized object, Gabriel knew, and once a rolling pin.

“Get out of here,” Chat Noir said to Gabriel and Nathalie. He veered the baton further down the alleyway where a few of the enslaved were attempting to get to their feet. “Get back to the house – you live near, don’t you?”

“Y-yes,” Gabriel stammered.

“Then go, we’ll take care of Verity Queen.”

Gabriel didn’t hesitate. He took Nathalie by the hand and led her through the minefield of fallen civilians. One of them had grabbed him by the ankle, but he shook them off and kept moving.

He asked her if she was okay when they had made it out, and all she could give him in return was a nod of her head.

It was just a few seconds after he had closed the front door of the mansion behind them that Ladybug’s miraculous cure swept across the city with a rush of pink light, but her magic couldn’t take away everything that had been said.

Gabriel was leaning against the door. Nathalie had traveled to the center of the foyer, her back to him, breathing heavily with the exertion it had taken her to nearly run alongside him. Duusu drifted close by, and Nooroo right above Gabriel’s right shoulder. Both kwamis watched them with round, uncertain eyes, not even Duusu daring to make one of her nervous mutters.

The silence felt to him more fragile than glass. Something as quick and as small as a brisk inhale could break it apart, and then neither would know what to do.

Nathalie took another slow and quiet step towards the stairwell, but it seemed one more was all she could manage. Carefully, she released a long and trembling sigh, a sound which so chilled Gabriel’s spine that he actually shivered.

They were both frozen there, waiting for the other to make a move and hoping at the same time that they could simply wait forever.

But Gabriel had run out of courage, and Nathalie had always been the braver of them.

“Gabriel,” she whispered, hardly audible.

He swallowed roughly, unable to reply.

“Did…did you really…” Her voice quivered, and he knew the rest of her question. _Did you really mean what you said?_ But it seemed to him that the reason she couldn’t ask was not that she was uncertain but that she believed him after all. She _had_ to believe him.

“Everything,” he said. “Every word.”

She was motionless. Her kwami stared with concern, her tail feathers twitching. “Ah,” she exhaled.

“Miss Nathalie,” murmured Duusu, “you need to rest.”

Gabriel peeled himself from the door and walked gingerly towards Nathalie. He was about to set a hand on her arm, but he thought against it. “She’s right. It’s okay. You should go.”

She turned her head to the side, defiance shining like smooth stone in the eye he had revealed to him.

“What is it?” he asked quietly.

And then, to his relief, the corner of her lip twitched into a delicate smile. “Oh,” she murmured, facing him, and doing what he had been too fearful to do by laying her healing touch on his shoulder. An expression, once so enigmatic was now beaming with unmistakable affection. Gabriel was filled with warmth and sorrow and something he hadn’t yet the chance to name. “You know.”

He’d missed the color in her cheeks.

They held each other’s gazes for the length of several rapid heartbeats, until Nathalie at last drew her hand away and ascended the staircase, Duusu fluttering at her side.

Left alone in the foyer with Nooroo, Gabriel closed his eyes, inhaling and exhaling deeply, trying to clear his lungs of the bramble that had grown there, his heart of its brand-new fire.

Of course, it wasn’t really new. It had been burning for a long time.

“Master,” Nooroo softly called, his wings lightly flapping, “what are you going to do?”

Gabriel tossed a tentative glance at his kwami. He would have liked to think that he’d done enough simply by falling so foolishly in love, but he knew, this could only be the beginning.

“I don’t know, Nooroo.”

He’d made such a habit of lying to himself, such a treacherous habit to break –

“At least,” he added eyes drifting back to the place that _she_ had just disappeared, “not yet.”

\-- but surely, it had to be a worthy one.


End file.
